Transportation services include shared (or public) transportation services and individual or small group transportation services. Public transportation services typically utilize vehicles such as buses, ferries, shuttles, and rail systems (e.g., commuter trains, subways, elevated trains), to list a few examples. Individual or small group transportation services typically involve vehicles such as taxicabs, limousines, and private charters, for example.
Organizations such as businesses, schools, or local governments often provide and/or operate transportation services. In one example, businesses provide taxicab services for the pick-up and drop off of employees. In another example, school systems often operate a fleet of buses to carry students to and from school each day. In yet another example, local governments (e.g., cities and towns) commonly operate multiple public transportation services that include a combination of buses, shuttles, and rail systems.
Occasionally, passengers of the transportation services are involved in incidents or mishaps during their travel events. For example, the passengers could board the wrong buses or accidentally depart (get off) at the wrong stops. These situations may occur with young schoolchildren because they are often not paying attention during the travel events. As a result, some passengers may get lost or try to walk to their destination. Another possible incident involves the passengers of taxicabs being dropped off at the wrong destination accidentally or intentionally. Additionally, in some scenarios, taxicab drivers are part of criminal organizations and may use their taxicabs for criminal purposes (e.g., robbery, kidnapping, etc.).
Recently, some businesses have started tracking vehicles with terrestrial or satellite-based positioning systems such as the Global Positioning System (GPS). In general, active and passive tracking are two common techniques for vehicle tracking. In active vehicle tracking, a GPS tracker is installed on the vehicle and transmits realtime location data to a monitoring system. In example applications, virtual maps are provided that show current locations of buses on their routes. In passive vehicle tracking, the GPS tracker records location data at periodic intervals and stores the data in a memory of the tracking device to be accessed later. These tracking devices can be used to monitor driving behavior, such as of an employee, and whether the employee exceeded speed limits, for example.